1.
Russian frigate Rurik (1851)
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Rurik was a steam-powered frigate of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was ordered by the Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland for the Finnish naval equipage and she was named in honour of Rurik, the semi-legendary founder of ancient Russia. Rurik was designed by Johan Eberhard von Schantz and she was built in Turku at Gamla Warfsbolaget i Åbo and launched in October 1851. At the time of her construction she was the largest ship built in Finland. The Scottish engineer William Crichton was recruited to supervise construction of the steam engine, later he took over the engine builder Cowie & Ericsson and renamed it W, m Crichton & C, o. Although financed by Finns, the ship ended up serving as an vessel to the Russian Imperial Yacht. She survived the Crimean War, and later served in the Russian Baltic Fleet, Rurik - armoured cruiser sunk at the Battle of Ulsan Rurik - Russian armoured cruiser built by Vickers
2.
Russian cruiser Rurik (1892)
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Rurik was an armoured cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1890s. She was named in honour of Rurik, the founder of ancient Russia. She was sunk at the Battle of Ulsan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and it appears that Shestakov wanted a design similar to Pamiat Azova and such a design was submitted via a constructor from the Baltic Works to the MTK. That design, a 9, 000-ton,8 inch belted cruiser, was rejected by the MTK, the submitted design called for a long warship and had a design endurance of 20,000 nautical miles. Shestakov was unable, however, to fight for the submitted design, shestakovs successor, Chikhachev, had excellent relations with the MTK board, and the Baltic Works design was quickly rejected. The MTK design which followed was a 10, 000-ton vessel with a 10 inch belt and with an operational speed, Rurik would also sport a complete barque rig. Construction began in 1890 after powerplant issues were solved by the designers at the Baltic Works. As plans and designs of Rurik were being finalised, rumours began floating as to the nature of the vessel. In particular, Britain became extremely nervous about the new cruiser, the British press fuelled anxiety to the point where it approached paranoia As it turned out, the Royal Navy grossly overestimated the threat posed by Rurik. With only a top speed of 18.7 knots in good conditions, after her commissioning, Rurik headed for the Russian Pacific Fleet based at Vladivostok. Admiral Fyodor Dubasov, who commanded the Pacific Squadron, recommended various modifications to the ship after a period of service, including reboilering. The reboilering project never got off the ground, but the amount of rigging was cut down significantly. By August 1904, only one ship had sunk and the Imperial Japanese Army had moved siege artillery close enough to shell the main Russian port in the Pacific. The siege of Port Arthur kept most of the Russian naval vessels assigned to the Pacific Squadron inside the port, on 14 August, three of the four Vladivostok-based cruisers sortied towards Port Arthur in an attempt to assist in lifting the Japanese blockade. They were met by a squadron of Japanese warships commanded by Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō in the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan, which resulted in the battle off Ulsan, the Japanese force had four modern armored cruisers, Iwate, Izumo, Tokiwa, and Azuma. Early in the engagement, Rurik was hit by Japanese fire three times in the stern, flooding her steering compartment so that she had to be steered with her engines. Her speed was decreased, splitting it from the rest of the Russian ships, further exposing her to Japanese fire, the Russian Admiral Karl Jessen attempted to provide cover for the ship, but was pushed back by the Japanese cruisers. As the Russian ships withdrew, Rurik was set upon by several Japanese cruisers, rather than surrender the ship to the Japanese, the senior surviving officer, one Lieutenant Ivanov, ordered the ship to be scuttled
3.
Russian cruiser Rurik (1906)
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Rurik was an armoured cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy in 1906. During World War I, the ship saw service with the Baltic Fleet, Rurik is unusual in that she was built by Vickers in Barrow in Furness, England. She was laid down in August 1905, launched on 4 November 1906, the Russian Navy was not usually a customer of British shipyards. She was named in honour of Rurik, the founder of ancient Russia. Unlike her previous namesake, Rurik, she has described as one of the best armoured cruisers built. She was designed by KA Tennison and AP Titov, and the contract was arranged by Basil Zaharoff, the ship had a prolonged work-up while defects were rectified. There was a plan to build two ships in Russia, but this was cancelled after the first battlecruiser, HMS Invincible. The main armament consisted of four 10-inch guns in two turrets, and the armament consisted of eight 8-inch guns in four twin turrets located at the corners of the superstructure. These guns were built by Vickers, the anti-torpedo boat armament comprised twenty 4. 7-inch guns in casemates. There were also four 1. 85-inch guns and two 18-inch torpedo tubes, gunnery trials revealed that the fastenings on the 10-inch and 8-inch barbettes were insufficiently strong and were deformed during firing. Vickers was forced to reinforce the turrets, the work was done in Kronstadt after delivery. All plate was Krupp armour made by Vickers, the 10-inch gun turrets were protected by 8-inch plate, and the 8-inch gun turrets were protected by 7-inch plate. The main belt was 500 feet long and extended to 5 feet below mean water line, there was also an upper belt,3 inches thick, which extended to the 4. 7-inch gun battery. Each 4. 7-inch gun had 1-inch armour screens and was separated by 1-inch armour from neighbouring guns, the forward conning tower was protected by 8-inch armour, and the after conning tower was protected by 5-inch armour. The power plant consisted of two four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines and twenty-eight Belleville type boilers, on trials at the Skelmorlie mile she reached 21.43 knots, developing 20,580 hp. She carried out a deployment to the Mediterranean in company with the battleships Tsesarevich and Slava and she was the flagship of the Baltic Fleet during World War I and saw much action, being damaged by mines on several occasions. On 19 November 1916, she was damaged after striking a mine in the Baltic Sea off Hochland and her crew survived, and she was refloated, repaired, and returned to service. The ship was out by 1918
4.
Oleg of Novgorod
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Oleg of Novgorod was a Varangian prince who ruled all or part of the Rus people during the early 10th century. He also launched at least one attack on Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, according to East Slavic chronicles, Oleg was supreme ruler of the Rus from 882 to 912. The nature of Olegs relationship with the Rurikid ruling family of the Rus, according to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg was a relative of the first ruler, Rurik, and was entrusted by Rurik to take care of both his kingdom and his young son Igor. Oleg gradually took control of the Dnieper cities, seizing the power in Kiev by tricking and slaying Askold and Dir, the new capital was a convenient place to launch a raid against Constantinople in 907. According to the chronicle, the Byzantines attempted to poison Oleg, having fixed his shield to the gate of the imperial capital, Oleg won a favourable trade treaty, which eventually was of great benefit to both nations. Although Byzantine sources did not record these hostilities, the text of the treaty survives in the Chronicle, the Novgorod First Chronicle does not give the date of the commencement of Olegs reign, but dates his death to 922 rather than 912. Scholars have contrasted this dating scheme with the reigns of roughly thirty-three years for both Oleg and Igor in the Primary Chronicle. The Primary Chronicle and other Kievan sources place Olegs grave in Kiev, in the Primary Chronicle, Oleg is known as the Prophet, an epithet alluding to the sacred meaning of his Norse name. According to the legend, romanticised by Alexander Pushkin in his ballad The Song of the Wise Oleg, to defy the prophecies, Oleg sent the horse away. Many years later he asked where his horse was, and was told it had died and he asked to see the remains and was taken to the place where the bones lay. When he touched the skull with his boot a snake slithered from the skull. Oleg died, thus fulfilling the prophecy, in Scandinavian traditions, this legend lived on in the saga of Orvar-Odd. According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg died in 912 and his successor, Igor of Kiev, the Schechter Letter, a document written by a Jewish Khazar, a contemporary of Romanus I Lecapenus, describes the activities of a Rus warlord named HLGW, usually transcribed as Helgu. For years many scholars disregarded or discounted the Schechter Letter account, zuckerman posited that the early chronology of the Rus had to be re-determined in light of these sources. In contrast to Zuckermans version, the Primary Chronicle and the later Kiev Chronicle place Olegs grave in Kiev, where it could be seen at the time of the compilation of these documents. Furthermore, scholars have pointed out that if Oleg succeeded Rurik in 879, he could hardly have been active almost 70 years later and it has also been suggested that Helgu-Oleg who waged war in the 940s was distinct from both of Ruriks successors. He could have one of the fair and great princes recorded in the Russo-Byzantine treaties of 911 and 944 or one of the archons of Rus mentioned in De administrando imperio. Georgy Vernadsky even identified the Oleg of the Schechter Letter with Igors otherwise anonymous eldest son, however, the academic mainstream has not endorsed either of these theories
5.
Veliky Novgorod
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It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just downstream from its outflow from Lake Ilmen, UNESCO recognized Novgorod as a World Heritage Site in 1992. At its peak during the 14th century, the city was the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod recognizes 859 as the year when the city was first mentioned. Archaeological dating is fairly easy and accurate to within 15–25 years, as the streets were paved with wood, and most of the houses made of wood, allowing tree ring dating. The Varangian name of the city Holmgård/Holmgard is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, originally, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Rurikovo Gorodische. First mention of this Nordic or Germanic etymology to the name of the city of Novgorod occurs in the 10th-century policy manual De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in 882, Ruriks successor, Oleg of Novgorod, conquered Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus. Novgorods size as well as its political, economic, and cultural influence made it the second most important city in Kievan Rus, according to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as the legendary Gostomysl, Dobrynya, Konstantin. Of all their princes, Novgorodians most cherished the memory of Yaroslav the Wise and his son, Vladimir, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day. In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki, four Viking kings—Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada—sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the 1030 death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, the town of Visby in Gotland functioned as the leading trading center in the Baltic before the Hansa League. At Novgorod in 1080, Visby merchants established a trading post which they named Gutagard, later, in the first half of the 13th century, merchants from northern Germany also established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof. At about the time, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges. In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the posadnik, or mayor, the tysyatsky, or thousandman, originally the head of the town militia but later a commercial and judicial official, was also elected by the Veche. Another important local official was the Archbishop of Novgorod who shared power with the boyars, archbishops were elected by the Veche or by the drawing of lots, and after their election, were sent to the metropolitan for consecration. While a basic outline of the officials and the Veche can be drawn up. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one officials power ended, throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally
6.
Kievan Rus'
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Kievan Rus was a loose federation of East Slavic tribes in Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century, under the reign of the Rurik dynasty. The modern peoples of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia all claim Kievan Rus as their cultural ancestors, according to Russian historiography the first ruler to start uniting East Slavic lands into what has become known as Kievan Rus was Prince Oleg. He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, Sviatoslav I achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus territorial control, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise, his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the state declined beginning in the late 11th century and during the 12th century, disintegrating into various rival regional powers. The state finally fell to the Mongol invasion of the 1240s. During its existence, Kievan Rus was known as the land of the Rus, in Greek as Ῥωσία, in Old French as Russie, Rossie, in Latin as Russia, and from the 12th century also Ruthenia. Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi, the Finnish designation for Sweden, and Ros, the term Kievan Rus was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian and Ukrainian as Кіеўская Русь Kijeŭskaja Rus’ and Ки́ївська Русь Kyivska Rus’, prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus in the 9th century AD, the lands between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea were primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper, to their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, a group of Slavicized tribes with Iranian origins, the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi, and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, controversy persists over whether the Rus’ were Varangians or Slavs. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources, attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the myths of modern states in the region. According to the Normanist view, the Rus were Scandinavians, while Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians generally argue that the Rus were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, nevertheless, archaeological evidence from the area suggests that a Scandinavian population was present during the 10th century at the latest. On balance, it likely that the Rus proper were a small minority of Scandinavians who formed an elite ruling class. Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court, identifies the Russi with the Norse, leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus as Scythians and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs
7.
Igor of Kiev
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Igor I was a Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus from 912 to 945. Information about Igor comes mostly from the Primary Chronicle and this document has Igor as the son of Rurik, the first ruler of Kievan Rus, 6378–6387. On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and he hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor. Askold and Dir straightway came forth, then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth. Igor was then brought forward, and Oleg announced that he was the son of Rurik and they killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill now known as Hungarian, where the castle of Olma now stands. In 913 and 944 the Rus plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus, Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. Igors wife, Olga of Kiev, avenged his death by punishing the Drevlians, the Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he tried to collect tribute for a second time in a month. As a result, Olga changed the system of gathering in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. Drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, Constantin Zuckerman argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945. He explains the epic 33-year span of his reign in the chronicle to be the result of its authors faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources, indeed, none of Igors activities are recorded in the chronicle prior to 941. List of Ukrainian rulers List of Russian rulers
8.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
9.
Rurik dynasty
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The Rurik dynasty or Rurikids was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year AD862. They ruled until 1610 and the Time of Troubles, following which they were succeeded by the Romanovs and they are one of Europes oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches. The Rurikid dynasty was founded in 862 by Rurik, a Varangian prince, come and reign as princes and have authority over us. Three brothers came with their kin and all the Rus in response to this invitation, Rurik set up rule in Novgorod, giving more provincial towns to his brothers. The Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project of FamilyTreeDNA commercial genetic genealogy company reports that Y-DNA testing of the descendants of Rurikids suggests their non-Slavic origin, Rurik and his brothers founded a state that later historians called Kievan Rus′. By the middle of the century, Kievan Rus′ had dissolved into independent principalities. The dynasty followed agnatic seniority and the izgoi principle, in addition, a line of Polotsk princes assimilated themselves with the princes of Lithuania. In the 10th century the Council of Liubech made some amendments to a succession rule, vsevolods line eventually became better known as the Monomakhovychi and was the predominant one. The line of Svyatoslav later became known as Olegovychi and often claim to the lands of Chernihiv. The Izyaslavychi who ruled Turov and Volhynia were eventually replaced by a Monomakhovychi branch, the Rurikid dynasty… attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia and the unifying notion of a Rus′ people. But Kievan Rus′ was never really a unified polity and it was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and populous groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial. This caused the Rurik dynasty to effectively dissolve into several sub-dynasties ruling smaller states in the 10th and 11th centuries and these were the Olgoviches of Severia who ruled in Chernigov, Yuryeviches who controlled Vladimir-Suzdal, and Romanoviches in Galicia-Volhynia. The Olgoviches descended from Oleg I of Chernigov, a son of Sviatoslav II of Kiev and they continued to rule until the early 14th century when they were torn apart by the emerging Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Moscow. Vsevolod I of Kiev was the father of Vladimir II Monomakh, two of Vladimir IIs sons were Mstislav I of Kiev and Yuri Dolgorukiy. The Romanoviches were the line of Roman the Great, descended from Mstislav I of Kiev through his son Iziaslav II of Kiev and his grandson Mstislav II of Kiev, father of Roman the Great. The older Monomakhovychi line that ruled Principality of Volhynia, they were crowned kings of Galicia and Volhynia. Romanovychi displaced the line of Izyaslavychi from Turov and Volhynia as well as Rostyslavychi from Galicia. The last were two brothers of Romanovychi, Andrew and Lev II, who ruled jointly and were trying to repel Mongol incursions
10.
Old Church Slavonic
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Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Church Slavic, was the first Slavic literary language. It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica, as the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages. The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in 863, the language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia, in 885, the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in favour of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the First Bulgarian Empire, there it was taught at two literary schools, the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School. The Glagolitic alphabet was used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School where it superseded Glagolitic. The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire and these local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language. In Bosnia was preserved the local Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet, while in Croatia a variant of the Glagolitic alphabet was preserved, see Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed. For Old Church Slavonic, the segments are reconstructible. The sounds are given in Slavic transliterated form rather than in IPA, as the realisation is uncertain. The letter щ denoted different sounds in different dialects and is not shown in the table, in Bulgaria, it represented the sequence /ʃt/, and it is normally transliterated as št for that reason. Farther west and north, it was probably /c/ or /tɕ/ like in modern Macedonian, Torlakian and Serbian/Croatian, /dz/ appears mostly in early texts, becoming /z/ later on. The distinction between l, n and r, on one hand, and palatal l, n and r, when it is, it is shown by a kamora diacritic over the letter. Accent is not indicated in writing and must be inferred from later languages, the pronunciation of yat ě differed by area. In Bulgaria it was an open vowel, commonly reconstructed as /æ/. The yer vowels ĭ and ŭ are often called ultrashort and were lower, more centralised and shorter than their counterparts i and they disappeared in most positions in the word, already sporadically in the earliest texts but more frequently later on. They also tended to merge with other vowels, particularly ĭ with e and ŭ with o, the exact articulation of the nasal vowels is unclear because different areas tend to merge them with different vowels. ę is occasionally seen to merge with e or ě in South Slavic, ǫ generally merges with u or o, but in Bulgaria, ǫ was apparently unrounded and eventually merged with ŭ
11.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
12.
Roderick
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Roderick is a Germanic name, in various derived forms appearing as the name of several legendary and historical characters. The name appears in Old German as Hrodric, in Old English language as Hrēðrīc and Hroðricus, in Old East Norse as Rørik, in the Primary chronicle, it appears as Russian, Рюрик, i. e. Rurik. In Spanish and Portuguese, it was rendered as Rodrigo, or in its form, Ruy/Rui, and in Galician. In Arabic, it appears as Ludhriq, used to refer to the last king of the Visigoths, Roderick is also an Anglicisation of several unrelated names. As a surname and given name it is an Anglicised form of the Welsh Rhydderch, the given name Roderick is also an Anglicised form of the Gaelic personal name Ruaidhrí/Ruairí/Ruairi/Ruairidh/Ruaraidh. Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as El Cid, or simply Rodrigo, was a Castilian nobleman and military leader in medieval Spain
13.
Primary Chronicle
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The Tale of Past Years or Primary Chronicle is a history of Kievan Rus from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113. The work is considered to be a source in the interpretation of the history of the Eastern Slavs. Tradition long regarded the original compilation as the work of a monk named Nestor, Nestor worked at the court of Sviatopolk II of Kiev and probably shared Sviatopolks pro-Scandinavian policies. The early part of the Chronicle features many anecdotal stories, among them those of the arrival of the three Varangian brothers, the founding of Kiev, the murder of Askold and Dir, ca. 882, the death of Oleg in 912, the cause of which was reported forseen by him, and the thorough vengeance taken by Olga, the wife of Igor, on the Drevlians, who had murdered her husband. Her actions secured Kievan Rus from the Drevlians, preventing her from having to marry a Drevlian prince, in the year 1116, Nestors text was extensively edited by the hegumen Sylvester who appended his name at the end of the chronicle. As Vladimir Monomakh was the patron of the village of Vydubychi where Sylvesters monastery was situated and this second version of Nestors work is preserved in the Laurentian codex. A third edition followed two years later and centered on the person of Vladimirs son and heir, Mstislav the Great, the author of this revision could have been Greek, for he corrected and updated much data on Byzantine affairs. This latest revision of Nestors work is preserved in the Hypatian codex, because the original of the chronicle as well as the earliest known copies are lost, it is difficult to establish the original content of the chronicle. The two main sources for the text as it is known presently are the Laurentian Codex. The Laurentian Codex was compiled in what are today Russian lands by the Nizhegorod monk Laurentius for the Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1377, the original text he used was a lost codex compiled for the Grand Duke Mikhail of Tver in 1305. The account continues until 1305, but the years 898–922, 1263–83, the manuscript was acquired by the famous Count Musin-Pushkin in 1792 and subsequently presented to the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. The Hypatian Codex dates to the 15th century and it was written in what are today Ukrainian lands and incorporates much information from the lost 12th-century Kievan and 13th-century Halychian chronicles. The language of work is the East Slavic version of Church Slavonic language with many additional irregular east-slavisms. Whereas the Laurentian text traces the Kievan legacy through to the Muscovite princes, the Hypatian codex was rediscovered in Kiev in the 1620s and copy was made for Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozhsky. A copy was found in Russia in the 18th century at the Ipatiev Monastery of Kostroma by the Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin, numerous monographs and published versions of the chronicle have been made, the earliest known being in 1767. Aleksey Shakhmatov published a pioneering textological analysis of the narrative in 1908, Dmitry Likhachev and other Soviet scholars partly revisited his findings. Their versions attempted to reconstruct the pre-Nestorian chronicle, compiled at the court of Yaroslav the Wise in the mid-11th century
14.
Varangians
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According to the 12th century Kievan Primary Chronicle, a group of Varangians known as the Rus settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik. Before Rurik, the Rus might have ruled an earlier hypothetical polity, Ruriks relative Oleg conquered Kiev in 882 and established the state of Kievan Rus, which was later ruled by Ruriks descendants. Engaging in trade, piracy, and mercenary activities, Varangians roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki and they controlled the Volga trade route, connecting the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, and the Dnieper and Dniester trade route leading to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Attracted by the riches of Constantinople, the Varangian Rus initiated a number of Rus-Byzantine Wars, at least from the early 10th century many Varangians served as mercenaries in the Byzantine Army, constituting the elite Varangian Guard. Eventually most of them, both in Byzantium and in Eastern Europe, were converted from paganism to Orthodox Christianity, culminating in the Christianization of Kievan Rus in 988. Coinciding with the decline of the Viking Age, the influx of Scandinavians to Rus stopped. Some scholars seem to assume a derivation from vár with the common suffix -ing, the reduction of the second part of the word could be parallel to that seen in Old Norse foringi leader, correspondent to Old English foregenga and Gothic
15.
Rus' people
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The Rus were an early medieval group of people who gave their name to the lands of Russia, Ruthenia, and Belarus. Later, Ruriks relative Oleg captured Kiev, founding Rus, academically known as Kievan Rus, the name Rus would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, Ruotsi and Rootsi. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe, discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gutes, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Veps then said to the Rus, Our land is great and rich, come reign as princes, rule over us. Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected and they brought with them all the Rus and migrated. Later, the Primary Chronicle tells us, they conquered Kiev, the territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people. Ibn Haukal and other early Islamic sources, as well as Muhammad al-Idrisi, mainstream Russian-Soviet historiography, tentatively identified these names with the tribal centres at Kiev, Novgorod and Tmutarakan. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, the swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver, copper, or gold, each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver and their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women, as for the Rus, they live on an island. That takes three days to round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests, it is most unhealthy. They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them, they carry them off as slaves and…sell them and they have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slavs lands. When a son is born, the father will go up to the baby, sword in hand, throwing it down, he says, I shall not leave you with any property. At least no source says they are part of the Slavic race and his description represents the Rus as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both Rhos and in Slavic languages, the Rhos names have distinct Germanic etymology, Essoupi Oulvorsi Gelandri Aeifor Varouforos Leanti Stroukoun
16.
Staraya Ladoga
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It used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries. A multi-ethnic settlement, it was dominated by Scandinavians who were called by the name of Rus, for that reason, it is sometimes called the first capital of Russia, though back then Russia didnt exist for many centuries to come. Dendrochronology suggests that Ladoga was founded in 753, until 950, it was one of the most important trading ports of Eastern Europe. Merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Ladoga to Novgorod and this route is known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. An alternative way led down the Volga River along the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, tellingly, the oldest Arabian Middle Age coin in Europe was unearthed in Ladoga. The original inhabitants of the settlement were Norsemen, the original Finnish name, Alode-joki, was rendered as Aldeigja in Norse language and later as Ladoga in Old East Slavic. According to the Hypatian Codex that was created at the end of 13th century, Ruriks successors later moved to Novgorod and then to Kiev where foundations for the powerful state of Kievan Rus were laid. There are several huge kurgans, or royal funerary barrows, at the outskirts of Ladoga, one of them is said to be Ruriks grave, and another one—that of his successor Oleg. The Heimskringla and other Norse sources mention that in the late 990s Eric Haakonsson of Norway raided the coast and set the town ablaze. Ladoga was the most important trading center in Eastern Europe from about 800 to 900 CE, Ladogas next mention in chronicles is dated 1019, when Ingigerd of Sweden married Yaroslav of Novgorod. Under the terms of their settlement, Yaroslav ceded Ladoga to his wife, who appointed her fathers cousin. This information is confirmed by sagas and archaeological evidence, which suggests that Ladoga gradually evolved into a primarily Varangian settlement, at least two Swedish kings spent their youths in Ladoga, king Stenkil and Inge I, and possibly also king Anund Gårdske. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Ladoga functioned as a trade outpost of the powerful Novgorod Republic, later its trade significance declined and most of the population engaged in fishing in the 15th century. After new fortresses such as Oreshek and Korela were constructed in the 14th century further to the west of Ladoga, Ladoga belonged to the Vodskaya pyatina of the Republic and contained eighty-four homesteads in the 15th century, most of the land belonged to the church. The Novgorodians built there a citadel with five towers and several churches, the reconstruction of one of the towers of Staraya Ladogas fortress was scheduled to be completed in 2010. The fortress was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, while the churches of St. George. Inside St. Georges, some magnificent 12th-century frescoes are still visible, in 1703, Peter the Great founded the town of Novaya Ladoga closer to the bank of Lake Ladoga. The ancient fortress thenceforth declined and came to be known as Staraya Ladoga, the heart of Staraya Ladoga is an old fortress where the Yelena River flows into the Volkhov
17.
Grand Duchy of Moscow
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The Grand Duchy of Moscow, or Grand Principality of Moscow, was a late medieval Rus principality centered on Moscow and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia. The state originated with Daniel I, who inherited Moscow in 1283, eclipsing and it later annexed the Novgorod Republic in 1478 and the Grand Duchy of Tver in 1485. After the Mongol invasion of Rus, Muscovy was a vassal to the Mongol ruled Golden Horde until 1480. By his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, he established Muscovy as the state of the Roman Empire. Ivans successor Vasili III also enjoyed success, gaining Smolensk from Lithuania in 1512. Vasilis son Ivan IV was an infant at his fathers death in 1533 and he was crowned in 1547, assuming the title of tsar together with the proclamation of Tsardom of Russia. As with many states the country had no particular official name. The Duke of Moscow or the Sovereign of Moscow were common short titles, in rivalry with other duchies Moscow dukes also designated themselves as the Grand Dukes, claiming a higher position in the hierarchy of Russian dukes. During the territorial growth and later acquisitions, the title became rather lengthy. Since the 14th century various Moscow dukes added of all Rus to their titles, after the title of Russian metropolitans, Dmitry Shemyaka was the first Moscow duke who minted coins with the title the Sovereign of all Rus. Under the Polish-Lithuanian influence the country began to be called Muscovy in Western Europe, the first appearances of the term were in an Italian document of 1500. Initially Moscovia was the Latinized name of the city of Moscow itself, not of the state, later it acquired its meaning and has been used alongside of the older name. The term Muscovy persisted in the West until the beginning of the 18th century and is used in historical contexts. When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, the first ruler of the principality of Moscow, Daniel I, was the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. He started to expand his principality by seizing Kolomna and securing the bequest of Pereslavl-Zalessky to his family, daniels son Yuriy controlled the entire basin of the Moskva River and expanded westward by conquering Mozhaisk. He then forged an alliance with the overlord of the Rus principalities, Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, the Khan allowed Yuriy to claim the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir-Suzdal, a position which allowed him to interfere in the affairs of the Novgorod Republic to the north-west. Yuriys successor, Ivan I, managed to retain the title of Grand Duke by cooperating closely with the Mongols and by collecting tribute and taxes from other Rus principalities on their behalf. This relationship enabled Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Moscows chief rival, the city of Tver
18.
Tsardom of Russia
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From 1551 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 per year. After a military victory over Sweden and Poland, he implemented substantial reforms and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721. While the oldest endonyms of the Grand Duchy of Moscow used in its documents were Rus and the Russian land, in the 1480s Russian state scribes Ivan Cherny and Mikhail Medovartsev mention Russia under the name Росиа, Medovartsev also mentions the sceptre of Russian lordship. In England of the 16th century, it was both as Russia and Muscovy. In Northern Europe and at the court of the Holy Roman Empire, however, muscovites refute this, saying that their country was originally called Russia. When they are asked what nation they are, they respond Russac, which means Russians, and when they are asked what place they are from, by the 16th century, the Russian ruler had emerged as a powerful, autocratic figure, a Tsar. By assuming that title, the sovereign of Moscow tried to emphasize that he was a ruler or emperor on par with the Byzantine emperor or the Mongol khan. At first, the Byzantine term autokrator expressed only the meaning of an independent ruler. Ivan IV was crowned Tsar and thus was recognized, at least by the Russian Orthodox Church and that concept was to resonate in the self-image of Russians in future centuries. The development of the Tsars autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, Ivan strengthened the position of the Tsar to an exceptional degree, demonstrating the risks of unrestrained power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from breakdowns of paranoia and depression, Ivan IV became Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 at the age of three. The Shuysky and Belsky factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547, reflecting Moscows new imperial claims, Ivans coronation as Tsar was a ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms, in the 1550s, he declared a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government. These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare, the key documents prepared by the so-called Select Council of advisors and promulgated during this period are as follows. Muscovy remained a fairly unknown society in Western Europe until Baron Sigismund von Herberstein published his Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii in 1549 and this provided a broad view of what had been a rarely visited and poorly reported state. In the 1630s, the Russian Tsardom was visited by Adam Olearius, whose lively, further information about Russia was circulated by English and Dutch merchants. One of them, Richard Chancellor, sailed to the White Sea in 1553, upon his return to England, the Muscovy Company was formed by himself, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and several London merchants. Ivan the Terrible used these merchants to exchange letters with Elizabeth I, despite the domestic turmoil of the 1530s and 1540s, Russia continued to wage wars and to expand
19.
Millennium of Russia
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The Millennium of Russia is a bronze monument in the Novgorod Kremlin. It was erected in 1862 to celebrate the millennium of Ruriks arrival to Novgorod, a competition to design the monument was held in 1859. An architect Viktor Hartmann and an artist Mikhail Mikeshin were declared the winners, Mikeshins design called for a grandiose, 15-metre-high bell crowned by a cross symbolizing the tsars power. The bell was to be encircled with tiers of sculptures representing Russian monarchs, clerics, generals. As for the Russian rulers, Ivan the Terrible is famously absent from the monument due to his role in the 1570 pillage and massacre of Novgorod by the Oprichnina. Alongside the Muscovite princes, the mediaeval Lithuanian dynasts such as Gediminas or Vytautas the Great who reigned over the Eastern Slavs of the present-day Belarus and Ukraine are represented. The most expensive Russian monument up to time, it was erected at a cost of 400,000 roubles. In order to provide an appropriate pedestal for the sculpture, sixteen blocks of Sortavala granite were brought to Novgorod. The bronze monument itself weighs 100 tons, at the time when the monument was inaugurated, many art critics felt that it was overloaded with figures. Supporters regard Mikeshins design as harmonious with the setting of the Kremlin. During World War II, the Nazis dismantled the monument, however, the Red Army regained control of Novgorod and the monument was restored to public view in 1944. A 5-ruble commemorative coin was released in the USSR in 1988 to commemorate the monument, history and description on the website of the Novgorod administration
20.
Nestor the Chronicler
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In 1073, Nestor became a monk of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. The only other detail of his life that is known is that he was commissioned with two other monks to find the relics of St. Theodosius of Kiev, a mission which he fulfilled successfully. It is also speculated that he supported the reigning prince Svyatopolk II and his chronicle begins with the Deluge, as did those of most Christian chroniclers of the time. The compiler appears to have been acquainted with the Byzantine historians, he makes use especially of John Malalas and he also likely had other Slavonic language chronicles to compile from, which have since been lost. Many legends are mistakenly attributed to Nestors Chronicle, the style is occasionally so poetic that perhaps he incorporated bylinas that are now lost. As an eyewitness, Nestor could only have described the reigns of Vsevolod I and Svyatopolk II, many of the ethnological details given by Nestor of the various tribes of the Slavs are of the highest value. The name of the hegumen Sylvester is affixed to several of the manuscripts as the author, the language of his work, as shown in the earliest manuscripts just mentioned, is Palaeo-Slavonic with many examples of Russianism. St. Nestor died around 1114 and was buried in the Near Caves and he has been glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. The body of the ancient chronicler may be seen among the preserved in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. His feast day is celebrated on October 27 and he is also commemorated in common with other saints of the Kiev Caves Lavra on September 28 and on the Second Sunday of Great Lent
21.
Early Slavs
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The first written use of the name Slavs dates to the sixth century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By that century, native Iranian ethnic groups had been absorbed by the regions Slavic population, over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded southwest toward the Balkans and the Alps and northeast towards the Volga River. Beginning in the century, the Slavs gradually converted to Christianity. The meaning of Slav depends on the context in which it is used, the word can refer to a culture living north of the River Danube, east of the River Elbe, and west of the River Vistula during the 530s CE. Slav is also an identifier for the group shared by these cultures. When discussing evidence used to construct a history of the Slavs, archaeologically, early Slavic physical evidence ranges from hill forts, ceramic pots and fragments to abodes. However, archaeologists face difficulties distinguishing Slavic and non-Slavic findings, many of these findings are inaccurately radiocarbon-dated or so isolated that they do not reflect organized Slavic settlement. Although a number of sources describe the Slavs, there are problems with using the texts to build upon available knowledge of the early Slavs. Useful historical information about the Slavs from them is cryptic or does not identify their source, the works tend to discuss the Slavs only in terms of their effects on surrounding empires, particularly the Byzantines and the Franks. The variety of names referring to the Slavs, such as Antes, Sclaveni, and Venethi, place names have changed, or no longer survive, and most texts are second-hand accounts or describe an encounter with the Slavs years, decades, or centuries after it occurred. Earlier texts contextualize the Slavs early history and development, but those written long after an event are less reliable, the Slavs were described by their neighbors as Antes, Sclaveni, and Venethi in texts written during and after the 500s. The concept of ethnicity during this period was fluid, more than one ethnicity would be ascribed to a group and this map of Slavic settlement during the 6th century relative to their neighbors drawn from written fragments, omits source information which contradicted Parczewskis conclusions. The association by archaeologists of pot and burial styles with ethnonyms, Ethnic identification can be subjective, especially in a region where many tribal groups identified themselves as distinct from one another. The history of the early Slavs is inseparable from political agendas underlying much 19th- and 20th-century archaeological, linguistic, according to Florin Curta, the creation of such a history was a function of both ethnic formation and ethnic identification. The Slavic languages, with about 300 million speakers in 2006, are a branch of the Indo-European language family. All known Slavic languages share a number of features, which suggests that they evolved from mutually intelligible dialects spoken in a relatively restricted core area, although the former common language is not attested in written sources, it can be reconstructed by studying its daughter languages. The similarities among the daughter languages indicate that Common Slavic was spoken during recorded history, theories attempting to place Slavic origin in the Near East have been discarded. None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, southern Ukraine is known to have been inhabited by Scythian and Sarmatian tribes before the Goths
22.
Volga Finns
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The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th edition of Ethnologue, Languages of the World has adopted a classification grouping Mari, the Volga Finns are not to be confused with the Finns. The Mari or Cheremis have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia, the majority of Maris today live in the Mari El Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics. In the 2002 Russian census,604,298 people identified themselves as Mari, almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas. They were briefly mentioned in the 6th century by Jordanes and were described in more detail by the Primary Chronicle. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov and they are thought to have been peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated in the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. One hypothesis describes the Merya as western branch of the Mari people rather than a separate tribe and their names are basically identical, Merya being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, Мäрӹ. The unattested Merya language is assumed to have been a member of the Volga-Finnic group. This view has been challenged by Eugene Helimski, who supposes that the Merya language was closer to the northwest group of Finno-Ugric, some of the inhabitants of several districts of Kostroma and Yaroslavl present themselves as Meryan, although in recent censuses, they were registered as Russians. The modern Merya people have their own websites to show their flag, coat of arms and national anthem,2010 saw the release of the film Ovsyanki, based on the novel of the same name, devoted to the make-believe life of modern Merya people. In recent years, a new type of movement, the so-called Ethnofuturism of Merya was emerged. It is distributed in the regions of Russia, for example, in Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Kostroma. In October 2014, adopted the 50-minute presentation Merya Language III Festival of Languages at the University Novgorod, in May 2014, the New Gallery in the city of Ivanovo during the Night of Museums opened art project mater Volga. Sacrum. The Meshchera lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma river and it was a land of forests, bogs and lakes. The area is called the Meshchera Lowlands. The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya and they are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century
23.
Vepsians
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Veps or Vepsians are a Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. The self-designations of these people in various dialects are vepslaine, bepslaane, according to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine,11 spoke Vepsian, the most prominent researcher of the Veps in Finland is Eugene Holman. Western Vepsians have kept their language and culture, nowadays almost all Vepsians speak fluent Russian. The young generation in general does not speak their native language and they probably also lived in East Karelia and on the northern coast of Lake Onega. It is possible that the earliest mention of the Veps dates to the sixth century CE, when the Gothic historian Jordanes mentioned a people called Vasina broncas, which may have indicated the Vepsians. One of the routes of the Vikings went through their area. Evidence from tombs prove that they had contact with Staraya Ladoga, Finland and Meryans, other Volga Finnic tribes and later with the Principality of Novgorod, later Vepsians inhabited also the western and eastern shores of Onega. In early Kievan Rus chronicles, they are called Весь and in some Arabic sources they are called Wisu and it is assumed that Bjarmians were at least partly Vepsians. From the 12th century their history is connected with first the Principality of Novgorod, Russian settlement reached the Onega Veps in the 14th or 15th century. Eastern Vepsians in the Kargopol area merged linguistically with the Russians before the 20th century, the existence of the Vepsian people was not widely known until the mid-19th century. Despite its close relationship to the Karelian and the Finnish languages, some 7,300 of them inhabited East Karelia. In the beginning of the 20th century there were signs of national awakening among Vepsians. Early Soviet nationality politics supported this progress, and 24 administrative units with the status of national village soviets were formed, the alphabet and the written language were developed. Teachers started to instruct in Vepsian in some elementary schools, the Soviet authorities started to oppress the Vepsian culture in 1937. All national activities were stopped and the districts were abolished. When Finland invaded East Karelia in the Continuation war, some Vepsians joined the so-called Kindred Battalion of the Finnish Army and these troops were relinquished to the Soviet Union after the war. In the postwar period many Veps moved from their villages to larger cities
24.
Gotlander
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The Gutes or the Gotlanders are the population of the island of Gotland. The ethnonym is related to that of the Goths, and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz, the oldest history of the Gutes is retold in the Gutasaga. According to legend they descended from a man named Þjelvar who was the first to discover Gotland, Þjelvar had a son named Hafþi who wedded a fair maiden named Hvitastjerna. These two were the first to settle on Gotland, Hafþi and Hvitastjerna later had three children, Guti, Graipr and Gunfjaun. After the death of their parents, the brothers divided Gotland into three parts and each one, but Guti remained the highest chieftain and gave his name to the land. In Modern Swedish language, there are two words for the inhabitants on Gotland, gotlänning and gute, all inhabitants of Gotland, regardless of their ethnicity, are gotlänning but one is called gute if one is of native descent. This is consistent with the spread of peoples from the Middle East at about that time. It is also related that because of one third of the Gutes had to emigrate. Then they draw lots, and every person was picked to leave. They went up the river Dvina, up through Russia and they went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. They settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language, the name of the Gutes in Old West Norse is Gotar, which is same as that used for the Goths. Old Norse sources such as the sagas do not distinguish between the Goths and the Gutes, in accordance, the Old East Norse term for both Goths and Gutes seems to have been Gutar. Only the Goths and Gutes bear this name among all the Germanic tribes, the fact that the ethnonym is identical to Goth may be the reason why they are not mentioned as a special group until Jordanes Getica, where they may be those who are called Vagoths. However Ptolemy mentions the Goutai as living in the south of the island of Skandia, certain linguists, as for instance Elias Wessén, point out that there are similarities between Gothic and Gutnish that are not found elsewhere in the Germanic languages. One example is the use of the lamb for both young and adult sheep, which is only seen in Gutnish and Gothic. Before the 7th century, the Gutes made a trade and defence agreement with Swedish kings and this seems to have been due to Swedish military aggression. Although the Gutes were victorious in battles, they eventually found it more beneficial to try to negotiate a peace treaty with the Swedes. Many kings made war on Gotland while it was heathen, but the Gutes always maintained victory, then the Gutes were sending many messengers to Sweden, but none of them succeeded in negotiating a peace, till Awair Strabain from Alva parish
25.
Belozersk
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Known as Beloozero until 1777, it was first chronicled in 862 as one of the five original Russian towns. According to the Primary Chronicle, Sineus, a brother of Rurik, however, Sineus most likely never existed. On several occasions, the settlement was moved from one bank of the lake to another, in the 11th century, the region was still inhabited primarily by Finno-Ugric tribes who fiercely resisted Christianization. In 1071, local pagan priests rose in rebellion, which was put down by the Kievan commander Yan Vyshatich, the Primary Chronicle reports that the dead bodies of priests were suspended from an oak tree, until they were torn to pieces by a bear. From the 10th to the 13th centuries, the territory was controlled by the Novgorod Republic, Beloozero was the seat of a small principality between 1238 and the 1370s, but subsequently between 1380 and 1384 became subordinate to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. On July 10,1612, Polish and Lithuanian vagabonds captured Belozersk without a fight, in the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, Beloozero was included into Ingermanland Governorate and named one of the towns constituting the governorate. In 1727, a separate Novgorod Governorate was split off and Belozersk became the seat of Belozersk Province in Novgorod Governorate, in 1776, the territory was transferred to Novgorod Viceroyalty. In 1796, the viceroyalty was abolished and Belozersky Uyezd became a part of Novgorod Governorate, in June 1918, five uyezds of Novgorod Governorate, including Belozersky Uyezd, were split off to form Cherepovets Governorate, with the administrative center in Cherepovets. On August 1,1927, Cherepovets Governorate was abolished and its territory became Cherepovets Okrug of Leningrad Oblast, at the same time, uyezds were abolished and Belozersky District was established. On September 23,1937, Belozersky District was transferred to newly established Vologda Oblast, within the framework of administrative divisions, Belozersk serves as the administrative center of Belozersky District. As an administrative division, it is incorporated within Belozersky District as the town of significance of Belozersk. Belozersk falls just within the subarctic climate range, with the fourth-warmest month being just below the isotherm of 10 °C to nearby humid continental areas, winters are cold but not severe by Russian standards for areas north of the 60th parallel. The economy of Belozersk is based on industry and food industry. Belozersk is connected by roads with Cherepovets, Kirillov. The Belozersky Canal, a part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway, which connects the river courses of the Sheksna, the town of Belozersk is classified as a historical town by the Ministry of Culture of Russia, which implies certain restrictions on construction in the historical center. The medieval monuments in the center are the Assumption Church. The wooden shrine of St. Elijah was built in 1690, the neighborhood is rich in old cloisters, such as Kirillo-Belozersky and Ferapontov Monasteries. Two of the most famous medieval icons were created in the 13th century in Belozersk and they constitute an intermediate style between Novgorodian and Northern icon painting
26.
Volkhov River
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The Volkhov is a river in Novgorodsky and Chudovsky Districts of Novgorod Oblast and Kirishsky and Volkhovsky Districts of Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia. It connects Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga and belongs to the basin of the Neva River, the length of the river is 224 kilometres, and the area of its drainage basin is 80,200 square kilometres. The city of Veliky Novgorod, the towns of Kirishi, Volkhov, and Novaya Ladoga, a number of etymologies, none universally accepted, have been proposed for the name of the river. In his Etymological dictionary of the Russian language, Max Vasmer doubted some philologists opinion that the name is related to the Finnish velho or Russian volkhv. The Volkhov flows out of Lake Ilmen north into Lake Ladoga and it is the second largest tributary of Lake Ladoga. It is navigable over its whole length, discharge is highly variable depending primarily on the level of Lake Ilmen. The Volkhov is reported to reverse the direction of its flow in its section in exceptional circumstances. The river freezes up in late November, and breaks up in early April, the level of water is regulated by the dam of the Volkhov hydroelectric plant situated 25 km upstream from the mouth of the river. Apart from hydroelectric generating purposes, the dam serves to facilitate navigation in the part of the river previously known for its rapids. The upstream part of the Volkhov is connected to the Msta River by the Siversov Canal bypassing Lake Ilmen, the downstream part is connected with the Neva, the Syas River, and the Svir River by the New Ladoga Canal bypassing Lake Ladoga. The main tributaries are of the Volkhov are the Vishera, joins the Maly Volkhovets armlet, the Kerest, the Oskuya, the Pchyozhva, the Tigoda, the Chyornaya, the Vloya, the Olomna. The drainage basin of the Volkhov includes the parts of Novgorod and Leningrad Oblasts, as well as areas in Tver Oblast, Pskov Oblast of Russia. The main rivers belonging to the basin of the Volkhov are the Msta, the Lovat, the Pola. Its role in facilitating trade is due to its position as the only river penetrating deep into inland Russia that flows north towards the Baltic, in the mid-9th century, the Volkhov was a heavily populated trade artery of the Varangian-dominated Rus Khaganate. It was a part of the most important trade route connecting Northern Europe to the Orient, by way of the Volga. The ancient Russian capital Staraya Ladoga and one of the most significant Russian medieval cities Velikiy Novgorod are located along the Volkhov, after entering the Volkhov near Gorchakovshchina and Lyubsha, commercial vessels of the Vikings cast anchor at the major trade emporium of Aldeigja. Then they rowed upstream past a series of rapids, guarded by the settlements at Novye Duboviki. There was another outpost at Kholopy Gorodok,13 km north of present-day Velikiy Novgorod, or rather Holmgard and it seems on the whole likely that such pre-urban settlements gave the country its Norse name of Gardariki
27.
Kiev
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Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many industries, higher education institutions. The city has an infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport. The citys name is said to derive from the name of Kyi, during its history, Kiev, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city probably existed as a centre as early as the 5th century. A Slavic settlement on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, Kiev was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varangians in the mid-9th century. Under Varangian rule, the city became a capital of the Kievan Rus, completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come. It was a capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbours, first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland. The city prospered again during the Russian Empires Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, in 1917, after the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence from the Russian Empire, Kiev became its capital. From 1919 Kiev was an important center of the Armed Forces of South Russia and was controlled by the White Army. From 1921 onwards Kiev was a city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed by the Red Army, during World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, remaining the third largest city of the Soviet Union. During the countrys transformation to an economy and electoral democracy. Kievs armament-dependent industrial output fell after the Soviet collapse, adversely affecting science, Kiev emerged as the most pro-Western region of Ukraine where parties advocating tighter integration with the European Union dominate during elections. As a prominent city with a history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjev, the name is associated with that of Kyi, the legendary eponymous founder of the city. Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, on one of the oldest English maps of the region, Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, in the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall, the city is referred to as Kiovia
28.
Mongol invasion of Rus'
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As part of the Mongol invasion of Europe, the Mongol Empire invaded Kievan Rus in the 13th century, destroying numerous cities, including Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir, and Kiev. The campaign was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River in May 1223, a full-scale invasion of Rus by Batu Khan followed, from 1237 to 1240. The invasion was ended by the Mongol succession process upon the death of Ögedei Khan, all Rus principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became part of the Golden Horde empire, some of which lasted until 1480. As it was undergoing fragmentation, Kievan Rus faced the unexpected eruption of a foreign foe coming from the mysterious regions of the Far East. For our sins, writes the Rus chronicler of the time, no one knew their origin or whence they came, or what religion they practiced. That is known only to God, and perhaps to wise men learned in books, the princes of Rus first heard of the coming Mongol warriors from the nomadic Cumans. In response to call, Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav Romanovich the Old joined forces and set out eastward to meet the foe. In the Secret History of the Mongols, the reference to this early battle is, Then he sent Dorbei the Fierce off against the city of Merv. He sent Subetei the Brave off to war in the North where he defeated eleven kingdoms and tribes, crossing the Volga and Ural Rivers, finally going to war with Kiev. The vast Mongol hordes of around 35,000 mounted archers, commanded by Batu Khan and Subutai, crossed the Volga River and it took them a year to extinguish the resistance of the Volga Bulgarians, the Cumans-Kipchaks, and the Alani. In November 1237, Batu Khan sent his envoys to the court of Yuri II of Vladimir, a month later, the hordes besieged Ryazan. After six days of battle, the city was totally annihilated. Alarmed by the news, Yuri II sent his sons to detain the invaders, having burnt down Kolomna and Moscow, the horde laid siege to Vladimir on February 4,1238. Three days later, the capital of Vladimir-Suzdal was taken and burnt to the ground, the royal family perished in the fire, while the grand prince retreated northward. Crossing the Volga, he mustered a new army, which was annihilated by the Mongols in the Battle of the Sit River on March 4. Chinese siege engines were used by the Mongols under Tului to raze the walls of Russian cities, the most difficult to take was the small town of Kozelsk, whose boy-prince Vasily, son of Titus, and inhabitants resisted the Mongols for seven weeks, killing 4,000. As the story goes, at the news of the Mongol approach, the town of Kitezh with all its inhabitants was submerged into a lake. The only major cities to escape destruction were Novgorod and Pskov, the Mongols were advancing on Novgorod but unexpectedly turned back at the site mentioned as Ignach Cross, of which the exact location is not known
29.
Vasili IV of Russia
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Vasili IV of Russia was Tsar of Russia between 1606 and 1610 after the murder of False Dmitriy I. His reign fell during the Time of Troubles and he was the only member of House of Shuysky to become Tsar and the last member of the Rurikid dynasty to rule. He was a son of Ivan Andreyevich Shuisky, born Prince Vasili Ivanovich Shuisky, he was descended from sovereign princes of Nizhny Novgorod and a 20th generation male line descendant of the Varangian prince Rurik. He was one of the boyars of Tsardom of Russia during the reigns of Feodor I. In all the intrigues of the Time of Troubles, Vasily and his younger brother Dmitry Shuisky usually acted together. Shuisky reported that it was a case of suicide, though rumors abounded that the Tsarevich had been assassinated on the orders of the regent Boris Godunov. Some suspected that Dmitry escaped the assassination and that boy was killed in his place. Shuisky recognized the pretender as the real Dmitry despite having earlier determined the boy had committed suicide, Shuisky then conspired against the false Dmitriy and brought about his death. After stating publicly that the real Dmitriy had indeed been slain and he reigned until 19 July 1610, but was never generally recognized. Even in Moscow itself he had little or no authority, in 1610, he was deposed by his former adherents Princes Vorotynsky and Mstislavsky. He was made a monk and eventually transported together with his two brothers to Warsaw by the Polish hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski and he died a prisoner in the castle of Gostynin, near Warsaw, in 1612, followed soon by his brother Dmitry. There they were forced to perform the Shuysky Tribute before the Polish King, the Romanovs, elected in 1613, did recognize Vasili posthumously as a legal tsar, and during their negotiations with the Polish authorities constantly demanded the right to rebury his body in Russia. Following the Treaty of Polyanovka in 1635, Vasilis remains were returned to Moscow. His first wife, Elena Mikhailovna Repnina, died prior his election to tsardom, after his coronation, Vasili remarried Princess Ekaterina Buynosova-Rostovskaya, whose name was changed to Maria, deemed more suitable for a tsarina consort. They had two daughters together, Princesses Anna and Anastasia of all the Russias, but both died in infancy during their fathers reign, and were buried in the Old Maidens Convent in Kremlin. As both brothers of Vasili, Princes Dmitri Shuisky and Ivan Shuisky the Button, died also childless, the future Tsar Vasili IV serves as a character in Alexander Pushkins blank verse drama Boris Godunov and Modest Mussorgskys opera of the same name. In both depictions, the character is an adviser to Boris Godunov and a master of palace intrigue, Pushkin later described his intention to write further plays about the Time of Troubles. About Vasili Shuisky, Pushkin wrote, I intend to return to Shuisky also, in the historical account he shows a singular mixture of audacity, flexibility, and strength of character
30.
Staraja Ladoga
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It used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries. A multi-ethnic settlement, it was dominated by Scandinavians who were called by the name of Rus, for that reason, it is sometimes called the first capital of Russia, though back then Russia didnt exist for many centuries to come. Dendrochronology suggests that Ladoga was founded in 753, until 950, it was one of the most important trading ports of Eastern Europe. Merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Ladoga to Novgorod and this route is known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. An alternative way led down the Volga River along the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, tellingly, the oldest Arabian Middle Age coin in Europe was unearthed in Ladoga. The original inhabitants of the settlement were Norsemen, the original Finnish name, Alode-joki, was rendered as Aldeigja in Norse language and later as Ladoga in Old East Slavic. According to the Hypatian Codex that was created at the end of 13th century, Ruriks successors later moved to Novgorod and then to Kiev where foundations for the powerful state of Kievan Rus were laid. There are several huge kurgans, or royal funerary barrows, at the outskirts of Ladoga, one of them is said to be Ruriks grave, and another one—that of his successor Oleg. The Heimskringla and other Norse sources mention that in the late 990s Eric Haakonsson of Norway raided the coast and set the town ablaze. Ladoga was the most important trading center in Eastern Europe from about 800 to 900 CE, Ladogas next mention in chronicles is dated 1019, when Ingigerd of Sweden married Yaroslav of Novgorod. Under the terms of their settlement, Yaroslav ceded Ladoga to his wife, who appointed her fathers cousin. This information is confirmed by sagas and archaeological evidence, which suggests that Ladoga gradually evolved into a primarily Varangian settlement, at least two Swedish kings spent their youths in Ladoga, king Stenkil and Inge I, and possibly also king Anund Gårdske. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Ladoga functioned as a trade outpost of the powerful Novgorod Republic, later its trade significance declined and most of the population engaged in fishing in the 15th century. After new fortresses such as Oreshek and Korela were constructed in the 14th century further to the west of Ladoga, Ladoga belonged to the Vodskaya pyatina of the Republic and contained eighty-four homesteads in the 15th century, most of the land belonged to the church. The Novgorodians built there a citadel with five towers and several churches, the reconstruction of one of the towers of Staraya Ladogas fortress was scheduled to be completed in 2010. The fortress was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, while the churches of St. George. Inside St. Georges, some magnificent 12th-century frescoes are still visible, in 1703, Peter the Great founded the town of Novaya Ladoga closer to the bank of Lake Ladoga. The ancient fortress thenceforth declined and came to be known as Staraya Ladoga, the heart of Staraya Ladoga is an old fortress where the Yelena River flows into the Volkhov
31.
Dendrochronology
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Dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating tree rings to the exact year they were formed in order to analyze atmospheric conditions during different periods in history. Dendrochronology is useful for determining the timing of events and rates of change in the environment and also in works of art and architecture, such as old panel paintings on wood, buildings and it is also used in radiocarbon dating to calibrate radiocarbon ages. New growth in trees occurs in a layer of cells near the bark, a trees growth rate changes in a predictable pattern throughout the year in response to seasonal climate changes, resulting in visible growth rings. Each ring marks a complete cycle of seasons, or one year, as of 2013, the oldest tree-ring measurements in the Northern Hemisphere extend back 13,900 years. Dendrochronology derives from Ancient Greek, δένδρον, meaning tree limb, χρόνος, meaning time, and -λογία, the Greek botanist Theophrastus first mentioned that the wood of trees has rings. In his Trattato della Pittura, Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to mention that trees form rings annually, in 1737, French investigators Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon examined the effect of growing conditions on the shape of tree rings. They found that in 1709, a severe winter produced a distinctly dark tree ring, the English polymath Charles Babbage proposed using dendrochronology to date the remains of trees in peat bogs or even in geological strata. During the latter half of the century, the scientific study of tree rings. In 1859, the German-American Jacob Kuechler used crossdating to examine oaks in order to study the record of climate in western Texas, in 1866, the German botanist, entomologist, and forester Julius Ratzeburg observed the effects on tree rings of defoliation caused by insect infestations. By 1882, this observation was already appearing in forestry textbooks, in the 1870s, the Dutch astronomer Jacobus C. Kapteyn was using crossdating to reconstruct the climates of the Netherlands, in 1881, the Swiss-Austrian forester Arthur von Seckendorff-Gudent was using crossdating. From 1869 to 1901, Robert Hartig, a German professor of forest pathology, wrote a series of papers on the anatomy, in 1892, the Russian physicist Fedor Nikiforovich Shvedov wrote that he had used patterns found in tree rings to predict droughts in 1882 and 1891. During the first half of the 20th century, the astronomer A. E. Douglass founded the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Growth rings, also referred to as tree rings or annual rings, growth rings are the result of new growth in the vascular cambium, a layer of cells near the bark that is classified as a lateral meristem, this growth in diameter is known as secondary growth. Visible rings result from the change in speed through the seasons of the year, thus, critical for the title method. If the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings are more visible in temperate zones, where the seasons differ more markedly. The inner portion of a ring is formed early in the growing season, when growth is comparatively rapid and is known as early wood. Many trees in temperate zones make one growth ring each year, hence, for the entire period of a trees life, a year-by-year record or ring pattern is formed that reflects the age of the tree and the climatic conditions in which the tree grew
32.
Earthenware
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Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery which has normally been fired below 1200°C. Porcelain, bone china and stoneware, all fired at high temperatures to vitrify, are the main other important types of pottery. Pit fired earthenware dates back to as early as 29, 000–25,000 BCE, outside East Asia, porcelain was manufactured only from the 18th century, and then initially as an expensive luxury. Earthenware, when fired, is opaque and non-vitreous, soft, the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities describes it as being made of selected clays sometimes mixed with feldspars and varying amounts of other minerals and white or light-colored. Generally, earthenware bodies exhibit higher plasticity than most whiteware bodies and hence are easier to shape by RAM press, due to its porosity, earthenware, with a water absorption of 5-8%, must be glazed to be watertight. Earthenware has lower mechanical strength than bone china, porcelain or stoneware, darker-colored terracotta earthenwares, typically orange or red, due to a comparatively high content of iron oxide are widely used for flower pots, tiles and some decorative and oven wares. A general body formulation for contemporary earthenware is 25% kaolin, 25% ball clay, 35% quartz and 15% feldspar. Modern earthenware may be fired to temperatures between 1,000 and 1,150 °C and glost-fired to between 950 to 1,050 °C, the usual practice in factories and some studio potteries. Some studio potters follow the practice, with a low-temperature bisque firing. The firing schedule will be determined by the raw materials used, historically, such high temperatures were unattainable in most cultures and periods until modern times, though Chinese ceramics were far ahead of other cultures in this respect. Earthenware can be produced at firing temperatures as low as 600 °C, much historical pottery was fired somewhere around 800 °C, giving a wide margin of error where there was no precise way of measuring temperature, and very variable conditions within the kiln. After firing most earthenware bodies will be colored white, buff or red, for red earthenware, the firing temperature affects the color of the clay body. Lower temperatures produce a red terracotta color, higher temperatures will make the clay brown or even black. Higher firing temperatures may cause earthenware to bloat, an Introduction to the Technology Of Pottery. Whitewares, Production, Testing And Quality Control, the Potters Dictionary of Materials and Techniques. A & C Black Publishers Limited, London, England, Third Edition,1991
33.
Jutland
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Jutland, also known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and the northern portion of Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively, jutlands terrain is relatively flat, with open lands, heaths, plains and peat bogs in the west and a more elevated and slightly hilly terrain in the east. Jutland is a peninsula bounded by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak to the north, geographically and historically, Jutland comprises the regions of South Jutland, West Jutland, East Jutland and North Jutland. There are several subdivisions and regional names, some of which are still occasionally encountered today. They include Nørrejyllland, Sydvestjylland, Nordvestjylland and Slesvig, historically, Jutland was regulated by the Law Code of Jutland. This civic code covered the Jutland Peninsula from the north of the River Eider to Funen as well as the North Jutlandic Island. The Danish part of Jutland is currently divided into three regions, North Denmark Region, Central Denmark Region and Region of Southern Denmark. These three regions have an area of 29,775 km2, a population of 2,599,104. The northernmost part of Jutland is separated from the mainland by the Limfjord and this area is called the North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy or simply Jutland north of the Limfjord, it is only partly co-terminous with the North Jutland region. Inhabitants of Als would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not necessarily Jutlanders, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands and the German North Frisian Islands stretch along the southwest coast of Jutland in the German Bight. Jutland has historically been one of the three lands of Denmark, the two being Scania and Zealand. Before that, according to Ptolemy, Jutland or the Cimbric Chersonese was the home of Teutons, Cimbri, many Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting in c.450 AD. The Angles themselves gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England and this is thought by some to be related to the invasion of Europe by the Huns from Asia. Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the part of the Christian era. Old Saxony was later on referred to as Holstein, during the First World War, the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea west of Jutland was one of the largest naval battles in history. In this pitched battle, the British Royal Navy engaged the Imperial German Navy, the British fleet sustained greater losses, but remained in control of the North Sea, so in strategic terms, most historians regard Jutland either as a British victory or as indecisive. The distinctive Jutish dialects differ substantially from standard Danish, especially West Jutlandic, dialect usage, although in decline, is better preserved in Jutland than in eastern Denmark, and Jutlander speech remains a stereotype among many Copenhageners and eastern Danes. Administratively, Danish Jutland comprises three of Denmarks five regions, namely the Region Nordjylland, Region Midtjylland and the half of Region of Southern Denmark
34.
Finno-Ugric peoples
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The four most numerous Finno-Ugric peoples are the Hungarians, Finns, Estonians and Mordvins. The first three of these have their own independent states – Hungary, Finland, and Estonia, the traditional area of the indigenous Sami people is in Northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula in Northwest Russia and is known as Sápmi. Some other Finno-Ugric peoples have autonomous republics in Russia, Karelians, Komi, Udmurts, Mari, khanty and Mansi peoples live in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia. Komi subgroup Komi-Permyaks used to live in Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug, Vladimir Lenin may have had Mordvin ancestry. There is a belief that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is potentially of Vepsian ancestry, a central concept in their cosmologies is the myth that the world was created from an egg. There are also myths about the Milky Way, ideas about the existence of the World tree or pillar, a myth about a bird floating on the primary ocean that dives for the ground is a central Uralic cosmogonic myth. In 2007, the 1st Festival of the Finno-Ugric Peoples was hosted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and visited by Finnish President, Tarja Halonen, north Eurasian Finno-Ugric-speaking populations were found to be genetically a heterogeneous group showing lower haplotype diversities compared to more southern populations. The proposal of a Finno-Ugric language family has led to the not just of an ancient Proto–Finno-Ugric people. Such hypotheses are based on the assumption that heredity can be traced though linguistic relatedness, however, Finno-Ugric has not been reconstructed linguistically, attempts to do so have been indistinguishable from Proto-Uralic. Like in any human population, individual groups within the Finno-Ugric language family have a diverse array of cultural, environmental. R1a1a7-M458 R1a1a7-M458 frequency peaks among Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples, r1a1a1i This group seems to have connection with among others the Finno-Ugric peoples. It is the North-East European subclade of R1a1a1 and spread from the Baltic to the Ural Mountains as well as the Carpathian Basin, the majority of the Steppe Magyars likely belonged to this haplogroup, carrying the Ugric Hungarian language. Ananyino culture Comb Ceramic culture Dyakovo culture Samoyedic peoples Finno-Ugrian suicide hypothesis Mile Nedeljković, Leksikon naroda sveta, people of Volga and Uralic regions
35.
Slavs
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Slavs are the largest Indo-European ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They are native to Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Northeastern Europe, North Asia, Slavs speak Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, states with Slavic languages comprise over 50% of the territory of Europe, therefore it is the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe by land area. Present-day Slavic people are classified into West Slavs, East Slavs, there are an estimated 360 million Slavs worldwide. The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural *Slověne, the oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest the autonym as Slověne. The word slovo and the related slava and slukh originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew-, cognate with Ancient Greek κλῆς, whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo, some other theories have limited support. The English term slave eventually derives from the ethnonym Slav, Slavs were captured and enslaved by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. The Slavs under name of the Antes and the Sclaveni make their first appearance in Byzantine records in the early 6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a name in the remote past. He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy, and that believe in one god. They lived in scattered housing, and constantly changed settlement, regarding warfare, they were mainly foot soldiers with small shields and battleaxes, lightly clothed, some entering battle naked with only their genitals covered. And they live a life, giving no heed to bodily comforts. Jordanes described the Sclaveni having swamps and forests for their cities, another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions a Daurentius that slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I. The Avars asked the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars, he declined and is reported as saying, Others do not conquer our land. The relationship between the Slavs and a called the Veneti east of the River Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain. The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs, perhaps some Slavs migrated with the movement of the Vandals to Iberia and north Africa. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers, the Byzantine records note that grass would not regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers
36.
Rorik of Dorestad
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Rorik or Hrørek was a Danish Viking, who ruled over different parts of Friesland between 841 and 873. Since the 19th century, there have been attempts to him with Rurik, the founder of the Russian royal dynasty. He had a brother named Harald, Harald Klak was probably their uncle, and Godfrid Haraldsson their cousin. The identity of his father remains uncertain, but Harald Klak had at least three brothers. Any of them could be the father of the younger Harald, several writers have chosen Hemming for chronological reasons, estimating Rorik was born following the 810s. This remains a theory, not an unquestionable conclusion. Harald the younger had been exiled from Denmark and had raided Frisia for several years and he had entered an alliance with Lothair I who was involved in conflict against Louis the Pious, his father. Frisia was part of Louis lands and the raids were meant to weaken him, by 841, Louis was dead and Lothair was able to grant Harald and Rorik several parts of Friesland. His goal at the time was to establish the presence of his loyalists in Frisia, securing it against his siblings and political rivals Louis the German. In the early 840s, Frisia seemed to attract fewer raids than in the previous decade, Viking raiders were turning their attention to West Francia and Anglo-Saxon England. In 843, Lothair, Louis and Charles signed the Treaty of Verdun, Lothair previously needed Rorik and Harald to defend Frisia from external threats. With the seeming elimination of threats, the two Vikings may have outlived their usefulness to their overlord. In about 844, both fell into disgrace and they were accused of treason and imprisoned. The chronicles of the time report doubt on the accusation, Rorik would later manage to escape. Harald probably died while a prisoner, according to an 850 entry of the Annales Fuldenses, Hrørek the Norseman held the vicus Dorestad as a benefice with his brother Haraldr in the time of the Emperor Louis the Pious. After the death of the emperor and his brother he was denounced as a traitor - falsely as it is said - to Lothair I, who had succeeded his father in the kingdom and he escaped and became the faithful man of Louis the German. And he came through the mouth of the river Rhine to Dorestad, seized, Lothar, since he could not crush him, received him into his allegiance and granted him Dorestad and other counties. After Rorik, together with Godfrid Haraldsson, conquered Dorestad and Utrecht in 850, Dorestad had been one of the most prosperous ports in Northern Europe for quite some time
37.
Annales Fuldenses
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Throughout this period they are a near contemporary record of the events they describe and a primary source for Carolingian historiography. They are usually read as a counterpart to the found in the West Frankish Annales Bertiniani. The Annals were composed at the Abbey of Fulda in Hesse, some scholars believe that the whole work was first put together by an unknown compiler only in the 870s. It has also suggested that they were continued after 864 by Meinhard. However, already after 863 the three or two groups of the Annals break off into different overlapping versions, continuing Rudolfs work down to 882 and 896. The two alleged principal extensions have been styled the Mainz and Bavarian continuations respectively, the Mainz version shows strong links with the circle of Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz, and is written from a Franconian perspective and are partisan to Liutbert and the kings he served. The Bavarian continuation was written in Regensburg until 896 and thereafter in Niederalteich. A new edition is eagerly awaited, the years 714 to 830 are largely based on the Royal Frankish Annals and the Annals of Lorsch. After that date the Annals of Fulda are relatively independent, the events recorded in the annals include the death of Louis the Pious and the subsequent dividing of the Frankish Empire into three parts at the Treaty of Verdun. After 860, the focus mainly on events in eastern Francia and on its king Louis the German. It also describes in detail the raids conducted by the Vikings in the Frankish Empire from 845 onwards. Other events recorded in the annals include various miraculous events such as comets, earthquakes, the annals end in 901, a year after the succession of Louis the Child. Along with the Annales Bertiniani, the West Frankish narratives of the same events), ninth-century Histories 2, trans. and annotated by Timothy Reuter, 1–14. The Annals of the Holy Roman Empire, the Annals of Fulda, The Annals of Fulda parts 1-5, The Funeral Annals of Fulda, The Oldest Annals of Fulda transl. and annotated by Grzegorz Kazimierz Walkowski ISBN 978-83-930932-6-7
38.
Hedeby
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Hedeby was an important Viking Age trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the most important archaeological site in Schleswig-Holstein, the settlement developed as a trading centre at the head of a narrow, navigable inlet known as the Schlei, which connects to the Baltic Sea. Hedeby was the second largest Nordic town during the Viking Age, after Uppåkra in present-day southern Sweden, Hedeby was abandoned after its destruction in 1066. Hedeby was rediscovered in the late 19th century and excavations began in 1900, the Haithabu Museum was opened next to the site in 1985. The Old Norse name Heiða-býr simply translates to heath-settlement, the name is recorded in numerous spelling variants. Heiðabýr is the name in standard Old Norse, also anglicized as Heithabyr The Stone of Eric. Old English aet Haethe, mentioned by Alfred the Great Hedeby, the old name of the nearby town of Schleswig is Sliesthorp. It is possible that the two names were used interchangeably for the settlement, depending on which language was being used. Hedeby is first mentioned in the Frankish chronicles of Einhard who was in the service of Charlemagne, in 808 the Danish king Godfred destroyed a competing Slav trade centre named Reric, and it is recorded in the Frankish chronicles that he moved the merchants from there to Hedeby. This may have provided the impetus for the town to develop. The same sources record that Godfred strengthened the Danevirke, a wall that stretched across the south of the Jutland peninsula. The Danevirke joined the defensive walls of Hedeby to form an east-west barrier across the peninsula, the town itself was surrounded on its three landward sides by earthworks. At the end of the 9th century the northern and southern parts of the town were abandoned for the central section, later a 9-metre high semi-circular wall was erected to guard the western approaches to the town. On the eastern side, the town was bordered by the innermost part of the Schlei inlet, Hedeby became a principal marketplace because of its geographical location on the major trade routes between the Frankish Empire and Scandinavia, and between the Baltic and the North Sea. Between 800 and 1000 the growing power of the Vikings led to its dramatic expansion as a major trading centre. The following indicate the importance achieved by the town, The town was described by visitors from England, Hedeby became the seat of a bishop and belonged to the Archbishopric of Hamburg and Bremen. The town minted its own coins, Adam of Bremen reports that ships were sent from this portus maritimus to Slavic lands, to Sweden, Samland and even Greece. A Swedish dynasty founded by Olof the Brash is said to have ruled Hedeby during the last decades of the 9th century and this was told to Adam of Bremen by the Danish king Sweyn Estridsson, and it is supported by three runestones found in Denmark
39.
Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia
40.
Friesland
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Friesland or Frisia is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of Flevoland, northeast of North Holland, in 2010, the province had a population of 646,000 and a total area of 5,749 km2. The capital and seat of the government is the city of Leeuwarden. Since 2017, Arno Brok is the Kings Commissioner in the province, a coalition of the Labour Party, the Christian Democratic Appeal, and the Frisian National Party forms the executive branch. The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the area of the province was once part of the ancient, larger region of Frisia. The official languages of Friesland are West Lauwers Frisian and Dutch, a proto-Frisian culture slowly began to emerge around 400–200 BC known for its artificial dwelling hills as a defence against the sea. The Roman claim on Frisia began in 12 BC with the campaign of Nero Claudius Drusus in Germania, after a series of costly battles against the Frisians, the Romans were suddenly sworn fealty. The de facto independence they later enjoyed as a Roman vassal shows that this might have been a mostly diplomatic decision based on the temporary favourable bargaining position. Together with other Germanic tribes such as the Salians and the Batavii they managed to keep the north of the Lower Rhine mostly free from Roman influence. The early eighth-century AD is known for the Frisian Kingdom, king Redbad, after incorporation into the Frankish empire, Friesland was divided into three parts. The westernmost part developed at the start of the second millennium into the County of Holland, while the remainder of Frisia had no feudal overlord and that ended when Charles V added Frisia to the Habsburg Netherlands as Lordship of Frisia. Under Napoleon, the department was named Frise, after Napoleon was defeated in 1813, the department became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as the province of Friesland. Friesland is the largest province of the Netherlands if one includes areas of water, in terms of land area only, the provinces highest point is at 45 metres above sea level, on the island of Vlieland. There are four parks, Schiermonnikoog, De Alde Feanen, Lauwersmeer. The ten urban areas in Friesland with the largest population are, The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the province of Friesland has an oceanic climate. In 2010, Friesland had a population of 646,305, the years 1880–1900 show slower population growth due to a farm crisis in which 20,000 Frisians emigrated to the United States of America. Since the late Middle Ages, Friesland has been renowned for the height of its inhabitants. Friesland is mainly an agricultural province, the black and white Frisian cattle, black and white Stabyhoun and the black Frisian horse originated here
41.
Louis the Pious
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Louis the Pious, also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, during his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the empires southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Muslims in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona, as emperor he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. In the 830s his empire was torn by war between his sons, only exacerbated by Louiss attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a note, with order largely restored to his empire. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father, though the problems he faced were of a different sort. He was the son of Charlemagne by his wife Hildegard. His grandfather was King Pepin the Younger, Louis was crowned King of Aquitaine as a child in 781 and sent there with regents and a court. Charlemagne wanted his son Louis to grow up in the area where he was to reign, Charlemagnes intention was to see all his sons brought up as natives of their given territories, wearing the national costume of the region and ruling by the local customs. Thus were the children sent to their respective realms at so young an age, each kingdom had its importance in keeping some frontier, Louiss was the Spanish March. In 797, Barcelona, the greatest city of the Marca, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, the Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. Louis campaigned in the Italian Mezzogiorno against the Beneventans at least once, Louis was one of Charlemagnes three legitimate sons to survive infancy. He had a brother, Lothair who died during infancy. According to Frankish custom, Louis had expected to share his inheritance with his brothers, Charles the Younger, King of Neustria, to Louiss kingdom of Aquitaine, he added Septimania, Provence, and part of Burgundy. However, Charlemagnes other legitimate sons died – Pepin in 810 and Charles in 811 –, on his fathers death in 814, he inherited the entire Frankish kingdom and all its possessions. While at his villa of Doué-la-Fontaine, Anjou, Louis received news of his fathers death and he rushed to Aachen and crowned himself emperor to shouts of Vivat Imperator Ludovicus by the attending nobles. From start of his reign, his coinage imitated his father Charlemagnes portrait and he quickly sent all of his unmarried sisters to nunneries, to avoid any possible entanglements from overly powerful brothers-in-laws. Sparing his illegitimate half-brothers, he forced his fathers cousins, Adalard and Wala to be tonsured, placing them in Noirmoutier and Corbie, respectively and his chief counsellors were Bernard, margrave of Septimania, and Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims
42.
Dorestad
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Dorestad was an early medieval emporium, located in the southeast of the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands, close to the modern-day town of Wijk bij Duurstede. The township was established at the base of a Roman fortress in the 7th century, and was situated near the northernmost branch of the Rhine which splits into the Lek, initially, the Franks and the Frisians fought for control of the territory. However, the Franks gained control of the Frisian Coast in 719, Dorestad flourished between the 7th century and the middle of the 9th century. The settlement was known for minting coins under the control of several Frankish rulers. It is generally believed that the township reached its peak around the 820s – 830s and it is thought that the decline occurred due to Viking invasions as well as a decline in the economy. By the 9th century, it seems that the need for trade was waning as regional trade gained importance. The majority of the information known about the emporium comes from a combination of historical documents, archaeological finds, in order to find out more about the settlement and its prominence in the early Middle Ages the site was excavated. Some excavations took place in the middle of the century and the finds from them are now in the National Museum. The most important findings were discovered during an excavation took place between 1967 and 1977. About 30 hectare were exposed during the excavation and much was learned about the parameters of the settlement. It was discovered Dorestad was situated one mile north of Wijk bij Duurstede and was approximately 3 square kilometers in size and this is considered a large settlement for the time period. It is believed that the settlement was separated into three districts, a harbour, a center located on the left bank, and an agricultural area located further inland. Upper and lower town were connected by a road which acted as the ‘backbone’ of the town. The remnants of this road can still be seen today, only the lower town was excavated by archaeologists as much of Dorestad was eroded away by the river bend. When the harbour was excavated the remains of wooden causeways which would have allowed for easy unloading of goods were discovered and these findings correlate to the development of trade on the Rhine. It is believed that wine from the vineyards South of Mainz was one of the most prominent products traded in Dorestad, old wine barrels have been excavated in Dorestad. It is also thought that glassware and lava querns for grinding corn were also transported to Dorestad for trading, the existence of these imports allowed Dorestad’s economy to grow substantially. While the upper town was never excavated, the soil of the site has been examined and tested positive for phosphates that confirm its existence and this may be because the residents of Dorestad used the tufa blocks from the Roman fortress as building material
